Pencepool Farmhouse Including Service Outbuilding To Rear

Pencepool Farmhouse is a multi-phase Devon farmhouse of early 16th-century origin with major later 16th and 17th-century improvements, and some refurbishment circa 1980. The building is constructed of plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with part of the front wall being timber-framed—a rare feature in rural Devon. Some rear outbuilding walls have been replaced with 20th-century brick and concrete blocks. The chimneys are stone rubble or brick stacks topped with 20th-century brick. The roof is corrugated asbestos, formerly thatch.

The house is built on level ground with the main block facing south-west. It follows a 4-room-and-through-passage plan. To the right (south-east) of the passage are two service rooms: first a very narrow room only as wide as the passage, and at the end a large kitchen with a gable-end stack. A 1-room dairy block projects forward at an angle from the front end of the kitchen. The passage rear doorway is now blocked. To the left (north-west) of the passage is the hall with an axial stack backing onto the passage. At the left end is a 2-room parlour crosswing projecting to the rear; the two rooms have been united by removing the partition between them. The former front room has a projecting gable-end stack in relation to the main block, and the rear room has a rear-end brick stack. A stair block is positioned to the rear of the hall in the angle of the main block and parlour crosswing. A rear courtyard is enclosed on three sides—part by the main house, and the rear by unheated service rooms forming an L-plan by continuing the parlour crosswing and returning across the rear of the courtyard.

The original early 16th-century house had a 3-room-and-through-passage plan. The inner room was probably somewhat smaller than the present parlour and unheated. The solid cob wall between the narrow service-end room and kitchen was originally the end wall of the house. The original house appears to have been open to the roof from end to end, divided by low partitions and heated by an open-hearth fire, though the roof structure presents interpretative complexities that might suggest the inner room chamber is original. An unusually long roof bay between the hall truss and end wall is propped by a king post, the centre stud of the framed crosswall of the inner room chamber which jetties into the upper end of the hall. The roof structure is smoke-blackened on both sides of the crosswall, as is the top part of the king post. This post must have been built with the jettied chamber, but for the upper part of the crosswall to be smoke-blackened on both sides it must have been left open to allow smoke to circulate over the chamber. The infill at the top is sooted only on the hall side and is therefore secondary.

The hall fireplace was probably inserted in the mid-to-late 16th century, and the passage and service end were floored over at the same time. Sometime after this, probably in the early 17th century, a fire damaged the lower end. The early 17th-century rebuild involved lengthening the inner room slightly and converting it to a parlour. The hall section of the front wall was rebuilt timber-framed, and the hall was floored over. An inferior section of timber-framing over the passage front doorway suggests a 2-storey porch existed then. Around 1700 the parlour end was refurbished and enlarged with a new crosswing. The stairblock, kitchen, dairy wing, and rear outbuildings were built at the same time. The house and outbuildings are two storeys, with some 19th-century outshots in the rear courtyard and a woodshed on the outer side of the dairy block.

Externally, the main block has a regular 3-window front of 19th and 20th-century casements with glazing bars. The passage front doorway is right of centre and contains a 20th-century panelled door under a late 19th-century gabled hood on curving brackets. The dairy block contains original—that is, circa 1700—oak-mullioned windows on the inner side and in the end, containing rectangular panes of leaded glass. The first-floor window in the end wall, however, was introduced circa 1980. Other windows around the house are 20th-century casements with glazing bars. The main block roof is gable-ended, the dairy block roof has a half-hipped end, and the parlour block roof is taller than the rest with hipped ends.

Interior features are notable. The upper (hall) side of the passage is lined with an oak plank-and-muntin screen containing a shoulder-headed doorway, originally an early 16th-century low partition. The hall stack backs onto this screen. The fireplace is large, built of stone rubble with a chamfered oak lintel. At the upper end of the hall is an original oak large-framed partition. The jetty bressumer is supported on a large jowl-headed post. An upper-end bench is situated below this wall, and both this wall and the front wall have mid-to-late 17th-century small field oak-panelled wainscotting. The axial beam is chamfered with step stops. The two rooms of the parlour crosswing have been traded into one. Both fireplaces are blocked, and only the front room has a beam, which is plain chamfered. The stair behind the hall is a straight flight with square newel posts with ball finials, moulded flat handrail, and turned balusters. From the stairhead, contemporary (circa 1700) bolection-panelled doors hung on H-hinges lead to the chambers. The chamber over the rear parlour has a contemporary bolection-moulded chimneypiece. The kitchen has no exposed beams. Its fireplace is brick with a chamfered oak lintel. A large rear oven is blocked, and to the left is a curing chamber, which was converted to hold a washing copper in the late 19th century. To the right of the fireplace is a circa 1700 service winder staircase. The crossbeam in the dairy is a 20th-century replacement.

The original roof remains over the hall and inner room parlour. It includes one side-pegged jointed cruck of large scantling over the hall with cambered collar and small triangular yoke (Alcock's type L2). The diagonal ridge is of unusually large scantling and stops over the passage as a charred stub where the early 17th-century fire stopped. A single length of ridge extends from the truss to the inner room parlour, including a mortise from a hip cruck at the end. This structure, including the common rafters and king post, is heavily sooted from the original open-hearth fire—far too heavily to derive from the early 17th-century fire. The end of the original ridge is supported over the inner room parlour by a clean early 17th-century side-pegged jointed cruck truss with pegged dovetail-shaped lap-jointed collar. The remainder of the roof, over the kitchen, dairy, parlour crosswing, and outbuildings, dates from circa 1700 and is carried on A-frame trusses with pegged lap-jointed collars.

Pencepool Farmhouse is an attractive and well-preserved multi-phase Devon farmhouse notable for including a front section of external timber-framing, which is very rare in rural Devon. It forms a group with its front garden wall and nearby barns, alongside other traditional houses that comprise the attractive village of Plymtree.